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BBC World Service

The best documentaries from the BBC World Service. Hear the voices at the heart of global stories. Where curious minds can uncover hidden truths and make sense of the world.
From the fightback against big surveillance in the US, to Ukraine’s “hell jumpers” to the story of life-saving peanut paste, we go beyond the headlines.
Each week, all year round, we bring you the stories shaping our world. From the personal voices behind the headlines to perspectives on faith and spirituality and how work and money impact our lives. Discover how people find solutions to global problems and look at the world through the lens of its media.
Powered by the BBC World Service’s global network, The Documentary Podcast is about the people living the story – helping you see the world with greater clarity.

The Documentary Podcast

Katy Watson highlights Australia’s complex, turbulent and evolving relationship with their number one trading partner - China. Having signed a free trade agreement eleven years ago, in recent years there has been a marked shift in relations, with Canberra balancing its security dependence on Washington with its economic reliance on Beijing. From businesses, diplomats and military personnel, Katy Watson asks if China is Australia’s enemy or friend? Or as some critics suggest, are they a ‘frenemy’?

Stories from the New Silk Road: The ‘frenemy’

We look at three solutions connected to the “three Rs” – reduce, reuse and recycle. The city of Brussels in Belgium is in the process of moving all 40 municipal nurseries over to reusable nappies – and have managed to do it without their staff kicking up a stink! Also energy companies around the world have found ways to encourage customers to reduce their consumption by making it fun, and lastly we meet Makafui Awuku in Ghana - a man on a mission to turn used plastic into school desks.

Clever ways to cut waste from nappies to games and desks

Political analysts and human rights organisations say Turkey's courts are increasingly being used to silence political dissent and to shape a more socially conservative society. The most prominent defendant is Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, and the opposition figure opinion polls suggest is most likely to beat President Erdoğan at the ballot box. İmamoğlu has been held in Silivri prison since March 2025 and now stands trial alongside more than 400 co-defendants in a sprawling corruption case. Other elected mayors have been removed from office and replaced by government appointees. Emily Wither speaks to a former judge punished for criticising the changes to Turkey's judiciary, mayors held for months without conviction, court reporters accused of spreading "disinformation," and performers prosecuted for what they said on stage.

Turkey on trial: Can courts control a nation?

Economic unease is growing among Russian workers as fuel shortages and Ukrainian drone strikes disrupt key sectors of the economy. 

Ed Butler examines the pressures facing businesses, workers and consumers, from damaged refineries to attacks on Wildberries warehouses.

As concerns grow over prices, jobs and supply chains, what do these disruptions reveal about the resilience of Russia's wartime economy?

Presenter: Ed Butler

The cost of war: Inside Russia's economic unease

In May, the Chief Justice of India unwittingly gave a name to a generational protest. He called unemployed young people “cockroaches” and the mass youth movement that had begun in the wake of the sudden cancellation of a national exam took on the title - the Cockroach Janta party. But India has not been the only country that has seen Gen Z - people aged between 14 and 29 - engaging in mass protests this year. It has been happening all over the place, from Serbia to Kenya. Different grievances, different circumstances, but the same generation. So what are the youth revolting about, and are they winning?
 Our panel of guests include Dr Nayana Prakash, research affiliate at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge; Erica Frantz, associate professor in political science at Michigan State University and Matthew Cebul, lead research fellow at the Nonviolent Action Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School.

The Briefing Room: Are Gen Z movements reshaping politics?

Evidence suggests that millions around the world are ditching the most popular dating apps to pursue alternative options. Users complain that swiping is not leading to dates or meaningful relationships, just admin and fatigue. In our conversations, organisers of in-person dating events share their experiences. Amber tells us. “You could like someone’s photo, you could like speaking to them on the phone but when you meet them in person there’s something different that can’t be assessed online – that’s a big part of why people are coming back to in-person events.” We also bring together developers of specialist dating apps, including an advocate of “slow dating.”

The business of modern dating

On 11 September 2001, suicide attackers hijacked two passenger planes flying over the eastern United States and crashed them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, causing both buildings to collapse. The attack killed 2,753 people. As smoke billowed from the burning towers, firefighters, police officers and paramedics from across New York City raced to the scene, climbing stairwells packed with fleeing civilians in an effort to reach those trapped. When the towers fell, hundreds of first responders were still inside, and in the years since, even more have died from illnesses linked to their time working in the toxic dust of Ground Zero. Twenty-five years on, Kirsty Wark travels to New York to bring together the first responders and survivors who lived through that morning. New York Fire Department Battalion Chief Joseph Pfeifer was the first commander on the scene, and later became planning chief for the rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero. Office worker Richard Eichen, who escaped from the 90th floor of the North Tower. Jill Pila, whose husband Jim Gartenberg worked on the 86th floor. Former NYPD officer Judy Castro, who rushed to the North Tower to help evacuate the building. St John's Hospital paramedic Jimmy Dobson, who spent the day bringing the injured to safety from the streets surrounding Ground Zero. Rear Admiral Michael Day, who coordinated the evacuation of an estimated 500,000 people off the island of Manhattan later that day. And the novelist A.M. Homes, a longtime resident of New York, who witnessed the events of the day unfold from her apartment in Lower Manhattan.

The Reunion: The 9/11 Attacks

On 11 September, 2001, Paul Carris was working on the 71st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. When the building was struck, he joined the evacuation and came across a colleague, Judith Toppin, who was struggling to descend the stairs. Paul stayed with her, supporting her through the long journey down as thousands fled and firefighters climbed towards the danger. They emerged only minutes before the tower collapsed. Paul believed he had saved Judith, but in the years that followed he came to understand that she had also saved him. Colm Flynn meets deacon Paul Carris to hear how the events of 9/11 transformed his life and faith. Paul recalls the extraordinary calm inside the stairwell, Judith praying Psalm 23, and the silence he later recognised as the presence of God. Twenty-five years after the attacks, he reflects on the terror of that day, and how a split-second decision to help a stranger changed his life forever.

The Woman Who Saved Me on 9/11

There are over 730 sinkholes in central Turkey, and their numbers are surging, threatening farmers’ livelihoods and the country’s food supply chain. These sinkholes occur suddenly when the soil collapses, forming a gaping hole in the earth. The sinkholes are a symptom of the ongoing drought and unsustainable water extraction in Konya province, Turkey's agricultural heartland. 
The production of water-thirsty crops such as sugar beet is prioritised in this region, which is used to make Turkey’s sugar. To irrigate these crops, farmers have had to rely on licensed and unlicensed wells tapping into the groundwater. Years of drought has meant that underground reserves cannot be renewed, making current farming practices unsustainable. The increased formation of sinkholes is not a surprise for experts who have been warning for years that extracting groundwater could tip the balance of nature. These sinkholes have luckily not caused any deaths but they are revealing that time is running out to save water and agriculture in this region.

Turkey's growing sinkhole problem

Myra Anubi looks at two solutions that harness the power of pictures to help disabled people. Books Beyond Words is a UK charity that publishes books with no words, just big pictures on every page. They are made for people with learning disabilities, who come together to read them in book clubs. Myra also hears about TapSOS, the only smartphone app to be approved by the UK’s emergency services, which is aimed at people who struggle to speak on the phone. We hear from one user who believes it saved his life.

The pictures that help and heal

Stephanie was brought up in France in a French family, but her birth parents are Indian – she’s an intercountry adoptee. In the 1980s and 1990s thousands of babies, like Stephanie, were adopted from India into white, western families. Now, inter-country adoption is more regulated, and there’s a recognition that this is a practice open to abuse – several countries have banned it altogether. 

In France, Stephanie grew up very happily with her adoptive mum and dad. But after they both died, she began to think more about her origins. And she experienced a desire to re-connect with her motherland. In this edition of Assignment, Stephanie journeys into rural India in the state of Maharashtra with journalist, Tanya Datta. Together they attempt to find Stephanie’s birth mother. Along the way, Stephanie discovers she isn’t an ‘absolutely abandoned and destitute child’ found on the roadside as she’s been led to believe her whole life, but was born to an unmarried teenager. Nearly 40 years later, will she find that 50-something woman?

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.

India’s Shadow Children

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